Strange Convergence: Lynching’s Link

One sang about lynchings, the other was lynched by the government. With the 100th anniversary of their births, the linkage between Billie Holiday and Ethel Rosenberg is discussed with Robert Meeropol, who was six when his parents were put to death in the electric chair, and whose adoptive father Abel Meeropol, wrote the song Strange Fruit, which Time Magazine called the song of the 20th century. Now in the 21st century, festive public lynchings may be a thing of the past, but police are still shooting down unarmed black men. And terror is still being used to quell dissent.